Albocàsser belongs to a stretch of upland that history keeps passing through. The Maestrat, the Master's country, takes its name from the military orders that ran it after the Christian conquest of the thirteenth century, first the Templars and then, after their suppression, the new Order of Montesa. Fortified hilltops like Culla and Cervera dot the horizon, and the villages are built tight and defensive, with stone houses and old arcades. At this shelter, in the ravine known as La Saltadora, you are reaching back much further than that, to the people who painted red hunters on the rock.
These are Levantine paintings, listed with others across eastern Spain as UNESCO World Heritage. They are typically small figures, often a few centimetres tall, and sometimes lively: archers in motion, animals running, groups apparently in step. Time and weather have faded most of them.
The landscape in between is a surprise to many riders who expect the Mediterranean to be all beaches. This is a high plateau cut by ravines, with almond and olive terraces, patches of pine and oak, and fields of cereals that turn gold in June. In the distance, rows of wind turbines sit along the ridges, which gives the Maestrat a slightly modern, windswept look. The wind is real, and it can make a bike twitchy on open crests.
The roads are narrow, twisty and almost empty, with decent surfaces on the main links and rougher ones in between. Distances look short on a map but take time. Albocàsser has about fourteen hundred people and a few bars, while Les Coves de Vinromà, a little larger, is the safer bet for supplies. For a big fuel stop, plan on Alcalà de Xivert or one of the towns nearer the coast. If you are here in spring, the almond blossom is long gone, but the smell of wild herbs is at its best, and the air is wonderfully clear.